1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for reproducing a plurality of reduced images.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical image reproducing apparatus, such as a digital camera and a camcorder having functions of both a camera and a video tape recorder (VTR), can display images in a forward or reverse direction on a display screen. In addition, the images may be displayed in various modes, for example, a multi-frame display (index display) mode in which the display screen is divided into a plurality of display areas for displaying different images individually at the same time and a slide show display mode in which the recorded images are successively displayed on the display screen.
Apparatuses that can display images in the forward or reverse direction as described above often have a fast forward/fast reverse function. In the fast forward/fast reverse function, the images may be fast forwarded or fast reversed in the form of thumbnails to increase the speed of an image update process or a plurality of reduced images may be displayed simultaneously for selecting an image to be displayed after the fast forward/fast reverse process is finished (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-211408).
However, there is a drawback in that it is difficult to recognize the images if the fast forwarding/fast reversing speed is too fast, and the user may become irritated if the update time is too long.